Media intrusion
What with a national newspaper columnist shouting a dirty word at children, one hopes the previous media-related fuss, about intrusions into celebrities' private lives, will retreat into some sensible perspective.
Overlooked in the focus on Bird-watching were the constant, horrible intrusions by newspapers into the private lives of non-famous people – the families of convicted criminals, defendants in trials, the unfortunate woman whose child-abandoning exploits were smeared across the tabloids – these are vulnerable people who are all, appallingly, "fair game".
Without by any means suggesting he should abandon his God-given free-speech platform, Meejit is happy to offer Kevin Myers a suggested get-away if he plans to lay low for a while: he can "tour London with Christopher Hitchens".
Hitchens, you recall, is an English-born journalist, for Vanity Fair, Slate and beyond, who has journeyed from Trotskyism to, well, it looks like Toryism. In evidence that it's only another short step from apostasy onward to prostitution, Hitch has joined up with American pundit David Horowitz to offer a luxury package-tour for Yanks.
In fairness, payment for oracular good company is not unheard-of even among liberals: the Nation magazine traditionally runs a posh readers' cruise, with hack companions. What is particularly, skin-crawlingly sluttish about the forthcoming Hitchens tour is its tight embrace of the crass, class-ridden anglophilia of moneyed Americans.
While seasoned Hitchens-watchers might expect a pub-crawl, the itinerary suggests anything but. Between Hitchens's "lectures drawing on his expansive knowledge of Britain and America", tourists will have a "private viewing of The Crown Jewels" (followed by shortbread with "The Constable of the Tower"); they'll tour the Abbey with the Dean of Westminster; and "a Guards Officer will talk us through 'The Changing of The Guard'". At Parliament, "We will be greeted by a Lord... before going to a private room for dinner."
Stately homes, Oxford spires, scenes from the life of Winston Churchill and "Farewell Dinner at The Cavalry Guards Club" round off the week, all for $5,850 each based on double occupancy and flights from Los Angeles. The punchline? This hermetically sealed visit to aristocratic Heritageland is organised by Horowitz's "Center for the Study of Popular Culture".
More free speech
Before London, however, Horowitz has another Churchill in his sights. Ward Churchill, professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado (and wouldn't our Kevin enjoy that title), has already resigned his department chair and now faces sacking after the unearthing of old "chickens coming home to roost" comments he made about 9/11.
Horowitz has been leading a witch-hunt of leftist academics that makes the crusade against Myers look like witty repartee. US talk radio and TV pundits are screaming for Churchill's head. Bill O'Reilly of Fox News has an internet poll inviting readers to vote Churchill out of a job. The governor of Colorado agrees.
Churchill's crime was to analyse the 9/11 attacks in terms of prior American definitions of "legitimate targets", eg. German businesses in World War 2. The traders in the World Trade Centre, he said, were like "little Eichmanns", facilitating a murderous US empire.
No, not nice. But the real story is that the Right, shrugging off 100,000 dead Iraqis, and having seized all significant corridors of power in America, including the media, now wants control over academic corridors of impotence.